Euro 2016 map shows birthplace of every top player

Ahead of Ireland’s first major clash at Euro 2016, here’s a wonderful piece of datavis charting each of the tournament’s major players and where they were born.

Euro 2016 is here and the countdown is on for Ireland’s first game against Sweden in the suburbs of Paris and, while the world will keep on spinning, much of Ireland’s workforce will be counting down the hours until they can run out to find somewhere to watch the match.

So what to do for those hours of build-up? One option would be to draw up an Excel file with your ideal formation and choosing whether to go with the (not-so) ageless Robbie Keane up front, or go with the obvious choice, Shane Long.

Or perhaps another, and far simpler, idea, would be to avail of the work of the amateur cartographers who have already created their own maps on Google Maps for the tournament using the My Maps feature.

One such map out there makes a lot of sense for those who have been lucky enough to get their hands on some tickets for the games, as it shows the locations of the 11 participating stadiums.

Where was Dmitri Payet born?

Aside from just giving you an idea of where they are, it also shows the distance from, say, the Stade de France in Saint-Denis to Stade Matmut Atlantique in Bordeaux.

But for those who love datavis and are soccer nerds to boot, the map that shows all of the birthplaces of the best players from each of the participating nations is hard to beat.

While the vast majority hail from within the borders of Europe, there are some exceptions, such as Dmitri Payet, born in the Indian Ocean island of Réunion.